Gambling
Related Essays and Reports by Andrew W Scott

World
Series of Poker Main Event... Report number 2

Las
Vegas, Nevada, USA

Sunday
July 8th 2007

Day
1B: Saturday 7 July
1,545 people started day 1B at 12 noon Las Vegas time,
and again play ended around 4am the next morning,
with only 587 players left alive. Once again players
were thankful that all play was in the air-conditioned
Amazon room.

The
Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon played today, and was
still alive with $44,400 in chips at the end of the
day. An amazing story of the day was that of blind
player Jason Holbrook. He has a female assistant who
whispers in his ear what his cards are and provides
a commentary as every hand (including the hands he
is not involved in) unfolds. Holbrook sits with his
head down on the table, a picture of total concentration.
High stakes tournament poker is tough at the best
of times, but to play blind is an extraordinary feat.
Sadly Jason did not make it through the day, but he
certainly won the admiration of all who watched him.

With
fields this huge, there are bound to be extraordinary
poker hands. Take this one: an unknown player holding
a pair of 8s must have felt confident when the board
came 8s
Jh 8h,
giving him four of a kind, an absolute monster hand.
Unfortunately he ran into Gene Strickland who was
holding 9h Th, and when the fourth and fifth
board cards came 7h 3c, Strickland made a straight
flush. As any poker player will tell you a straight
flush beats four of a kind, but losing with four of
a kind in poker is akin in the luck stakes to being
hit on the head by a meteorite.

How’s
this for another incredible hand: four players hold
Ad Ac, Ah As, Kc Ks and Th
Ts respectively. The board comes 5d 7c 6h 4s
3h and they split the pot up four ways, all sharing
the straight on the board. Seeing a pair of Aces against
another pair of Aces is strange enough, but with pocket
Kings and pocket tens as well? And then the board
comes with a made straight???? That must be odds of
millions to one.

Australia’s
own 2005 champion Joe Hachem played on day 1B, on
the ESPN feature TV table. It was a tough day for
Joe, but he is still alive having turned his $20,000
starting stack into $35,300 in tournament chips. He
survived a very scary moment when his Ace-King was
up against a pair of Aces, but the flop came 10-Jack-Queen
giving him a very lucky straight.

Aussies
Gary Benson and Sam Khouiss also played on day 1B.
Benson struggled for most of the day, getting up to
$55,000, dropping back to a mere $8,000, but managing
to finish the day with a respectable $41,900. I watched
Gary for over an hour, he was clearly frustrated but
played his usual strong and tight game. I also watched
Sam for a while, and his standard endless patter was
in overdrive. One hand he announced to his opponent
"I am miles ahead of you here", but then
his opponent raised him, and Sam reluctantly folded.
It was a great fold because both players graciously
showed each other their cards after the hand and Sam
would have lost had he called the raise.

1998
champion Scotty Nguyen and the lovely Evelyn Ng were
playing on the second TV table. They both survived
the day with $129,000 and $70,800 in tournament chips
respectively. Other big names still alive include
1995 champion Dan Harrington. 1988 runner up Erik
Seidel has been eliminated.